The Best Day So Far – Heading for Cascais

1930 hours and John is busy in the Galley cooking chilli con carne with rice. Nigel is, of course, sitting at the chart table concocting this blog entry, while Mike and Richard are on watch, as night falls.

The morning saw us burble gently on the motor for a few hours until the sea breeze came up, after which we deployed the big red cruising chute, switched off the engine and speed increased to an average of 8 kts for the rest of afternoon. The sun beat down and we relaxed with books, chats and the occasional piece of chocolate. The peace was disturbed, from time to time, by hoards of dolphin, who seemed to be trying to scare us away from their feeding grounds, because as soon as we were clear of the feeding frenzy of gannets, terns and dolphin, they left us to go back to their fish feast.

A couple of terns, a mother and her young hitched a ride on our bimini. The young bird squawked incessantly at the mother, who flew sorties out to sea and came back with small fish in her beak, which the young bird greedily swallowed, before starting up his squawking again.

The fun of the chute had to end at sunset, despite the ideal breeze, as it is not easy to fly it at night. So it was unceremoniously snuffed, bagged and dropped down the fore deck hatch into Nigel’s cabin, where it will keep him company overnight. A lone genoa was set for the continuation of the run south.